I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10 • Hacker News Board

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#411

Post by mondoshawan » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 1:45 AM UTC

bittercynic wrote: post #321

ManFromUranus wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were always free to not use new MS operating systems. Nobody forced you to make any MS accounts or use Window 8,10 or whatever, so if you installed Windows 8 and didn't like it, that doesn't make MS evil, just don't use it. Anyone who inclined to use CentOS as their daily driver probably was never going to like MS OS's anyway. You probably only ever installed it just to find out what you hate about it.

The argument "Don't use it if you don't like it." certainly applies to many things, but when a company gets to the scale of Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc, the context is not the same. It seems reasonable to hold these behemoths to a higher standard than scrappy startups.

This argument is specious at best. We must hold all parties involved to the same level of standard as any, at all levels because a breach of trust at any size is seriously damaging to the consumer. It doesn't matter about the size of the Corp.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#412

Post by vacri » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 1:47 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #385

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience: A while back I put together a Linode server for a small project. Because I was lazy I made a private page of web links for the site logs and made the URL something long and obscure with plenty of backslashes that couldn't be spidered or guessed. The main site had no Google analytics and barely any traffic. When I checked the logs a couple of days later my private log page had been accessed externally.…

I prefer Safari because I always thought it weird to let a company who's primary revenue is targeted advertising control my browser.

So instead you use a browser from a company whose goal is to control all your purchasing?

Yesterday one of my friends bought a mac. He needed a credit card before he could install vim... vim needs brew, which needs xcode, which needs the istore, which needs an appleid, which needs (well, wants) a credit card on file.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#413

Post by ams6110 » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 1:48 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #193

Animats wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant." Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops? This is not going to fly with business customers. Microsoft has already bombed twice in the business space, with Windows Vista and Windows 8. This looks like another bomb. Windows 7 is still pretty good, and it will probably be the main Microso…

>Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops? I did. Linux and OSX are still available for whoever wants them. You can stick with Windows 7 if you want, that's just fine. I like Cortana. I like my software knowing what I like and what I'm interested in. It makes my life easier, which is what computers were invented for. I can see why some people might not, and to be fair I use Linux on my work laptop because the…

I would never put my client data on a Windows machine.

But how many people will?

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#414

Post by partiallypro » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 2:01 AM UTC

twerkmonsta wrote: post #262

niyogi wrote: post #248

It's too bad that microsoft continues to be villainized when companies like Facebook and Google have social networks and browsers respectively that have similar practices that users are even more unaware of when they use them. Computers these days have become thin clients for browsers (especially for the typical consumer). Except for the occasional open of Word or Excel, you're in your web browser browsing the web an…

Facebook and Google don't log all of my keystrokes across my entire operating system. As far as I know, Google doesn't even log keystrokes within the browser.

> don't log all of my keystrokes across my entire operating system

Microsoft isn't doing this either, they are monitoring your usage of Cortana/System Search and your selection of its suggestions (just like Google does for Google Now,) to improve their algorithms. This is really being blown of proportion. Reminds me of people freaking out about Palladium with Project Longhorn.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#415

Post by partiallypro » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 2:04 AM UTC

twerkmonsta wrote: post #274

ArtDev wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook does for status messages: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131215/23260825572/faceb...

Again, logging my keystrokes in a single text input field is vastly different from logging all of my keystrokes across the board.

Except logging your keystrokes across the board is not what Microsoft is doing. Do you realize how absolutely useless that data would be? They are monitoring search queries, specifically in Cortana. They probably do the same for auto correct instances. They aren't logging all of your keystrokes.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#416

Post by Silhouette » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 2:05 AM UTC

9872 wrote: post #409

Silhouette wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't ok with public information being re-broadcasted, don't go outside. Rights and freedoms that you can only exercise by giving up any semblance of normal life are no rights and freedoms at all. The idea that the moment you step outside of your home or go on-line you forfeit any right to the slightest respect for your privacy and we should just accept this is silly. And if you think the only people who care…

So you agree that you have no such rights and freedoms. That seems like the practical view. The alternative is the path of craziness, filled with things like the "right to be forgotten".

So you agree that you have no such rights and freedoms.

No, I think that just because we can do something, it doesn't mean we should.

In a literal sense, you have no rights or freedoms that you are not prepared to protect with your life. You can lose anything else to someone willing to try hard enough to take it from you. Fortunately, in civilised societies, we do not generally require everyone to die to defend basic human rights that most of us think are worth protecting. Instead we adopt laws and punish those who would break them.

The alternative is the path of craziness, filled with things like the "right to be forgotten".

And as you can probably guess, I support the basic idea of the right to be forgotten as well. I have no problem with requiring companies that specialise in providing easy access to data -- and that make huge amounts of money because of the immense volumes of data they deal with -- to make it harder to access information about, say, victims of abuse or mistaken identity. When the statistics came out about who was really making use of the right to be forgotten ruling in Europe, contrary to all the naysayers, it mostly wasn't people like criminals and politicians who arguably invited negative publicity.

That said, I have no problem with reducing the profile of criminals with spent convictions either, nor those who have done things that were not criminal but which society frowned upon at some point in history. A society that never forgets, full of people who want to hold everything someone ever did against them for all eternity, is not a healthy society. I believe most people can be rehabilitated even after a dark past, and the evidence about how successful different legal systems around the world are at preventing recurrence of damaging behaviour overwhelmingly supports that position as well.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#417

Post by tn13 » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 2:13 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #167

ewzimm wrote: post #20

Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant, so I expected to see all these things as defaults. The advanced features just couldn't work without it. I'm glad there's at least an opt-out, but I do think that Windows needs an OS-wide incognito mode, just a simple switch to record or not record data. I generally use that on my browser for whe…

"Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant." Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops? This is not going to fly with business customers. Microsoft has already bombed twice in the business space, with Windows Vista and Windows 8. This looks like another bomb. Windows 7 is still pretty good, and it will probably be the main Microso…

On the contrary businesses would prefer an OS where they will have to pay much less fee each year than paying one large amount occasionally. Vista and Windows 8 were needless OS which did not offer any value. Windows 10 on other hand has a lot to offer to both consumers and businesses.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#418

Post by cm2187 » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #372

edoloughlin wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like my software knowing what I like and what I'm interested in. So do I, but I don't like my software vendors knowing it too.

I especially don't like trusted partners knowing.

Or the guys who will hack the trusted partners

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#419

Post by pdkl95 » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 2:21 AM UTC

jimrandomh wrote: post #52

"Send typing and inking data to Microsoft to improve the recognition and suggestion platform" "Typing data" sounds like keylogging. If it's what it sounds like, that's really emphatically not okay; that would include all passwords and the contents of all emails sent. Would someone with actual knowledge care to chime in and say what data is actually sent? If it turns out that Windows 10 really is sending keystrokes to…

> what data is actually sent?

It's important to remember that it doesn't matter what MS is doing today. What matters is what the force-updated version will do in the future. Or did everybody forget that you cannot prevent updates in this version?

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#420

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 2:35 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #412

briandear wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer Safari because I always thought it weird to let a company who's primary revenue is targeted advertising control my browser.

So instead you use a browser from a company whose goal is to control all your purchasing? Yesterday one of my friends bought a mac. He needed a credit card before he could install vim... vim needs brew, which needs xcode, which needs the istore, which needs an appleid, which needs (well, wants) a credit card on file.

[deleted]